THE SAINTS IN A YEAR: ST FRANCIS DE SALES AND OUR BATTLE WITH ADDICTION

Fr Billy Swan

When we engage in conversation about addiction, there is a good chance that unless we have suffered from serious addiction ourselves, we will see ourselves apart from the group of people who have become enslaved to drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography and the like. However, it is closer to the truth that all of us suffer from some form of addiction that leaves us overly attached to something or someone, in a way that enslaves us to what we are addicted to. On 24^th January each year, the Church celebrates the feast of a saint whose wisdom takes us to the root of our battle with addiction, by helping us hate what enslaves us so we can be restored to the freedom of the children of God.

St Francis de Sales (1567-1622) was renowned as a priest, bishop, spiritual director and eloquent preacher. Born in France, he ministered in very challenging times as the Reformation spread across central Europe. In his timeless classic ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’, St Francis teaches that in our battle with addictions, we must be sorry before God but also come to hate what we are addicted to. This is key to our reform and conversion. For unless we hate what we are addicted to, our contrition will be temporary and our transformation minimal.

He writes: ‘Penitents who forsake sin but do not give up their affection to it: that is to say, they resolve to sin no longer, but they have a certain reluctance to deprive themselves of the miserable delectations of sin’ (Introduction to the Devout Life, First Part of the Introduction, Chap. 7).  Here Francis identifies something in our human nature that tries to do a deal with sin and our addiction to it – while we want to be forgiven of sin, our affection for what we are addicted to, stubbornly remains, leaving us prone to choosing it again. About such a person seeking forgiveness and freedom, Francis warns:

‘Ah! Who cannot see that, though this poor man is out of sin, he is nevertheless altogether encumbered with affection to the sin…Alas! Such persons are in great danger…For you must not only forsake sin but you must also cleanse your heart from all the affections which are connected with sin’ (ibid).

According to Francis, the key to a devout life and freedom from addictions is to ‘loath the sin with a powerful and vigorous contrition, detesting not just the sin but also all affection to the sin and all that springs from it and leads to it’ (ibid).

This dynamic is repeated endlessly in our grip of addictions. Whether they are addictions to the more destructive things like alcohol, drugs, pornography and gambling to the more subtle addictions to things like activism, power, the internet, being liked, a desperate search for intimacy, fantasies or an endless variety of other things, what they all have in common is a tag attached to them that says ‘Love Me Above All things’. And when we do, we are hooked and controlled by them. But when we come to hate what we are addicted to and seek forgiveness for living that addiction, only then, with God’s grace can we begin to experience lasting freedom as our passion and desire shift back to God Himself.

Addictions supplant God’s love as the object of our deepest desire and source of freedom. This is why Jesus insisted on our loves having a hierarchy where God and his kingdom come first: ‘Where your treasure is there will your heart be too’ (Matt. 6:21); ‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14:26). With these words, Jesus simply says to us: ‘Nothing must be more important to you than me and my kingdom’.

On the feast of St Francis de Sales, may his prayers and guidance help us who battle with more addictions than we care to admit. May we seek God’s forgiveness for the times we have succumbed to our addictions out of love for them. But may we also grow to hate what we are addicted to and so finally be free to love God ‘with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind’ (Matt. 22:37).